View full sizeMolly Harbarger/The OregonianEric Conrad, sales manager for Tacoma, Wash., based Solar Gem Greenhouses sits inside a display unit during the Portland Fall Home & Garden show at the Portland Expo Center.

Eric Conrad called out to people browsing the Portland Fall Home & Garden Show on Saturday from inside a display greenhouse asking, "What size do you want?" -- getting beyond whether they even wanted to buy one of the prefab units.

The gregarious Conrad is the sales manager for Solar Gem Greenhouses, based in Tacoma, which sells the units in a variety of sizes that the company delivers. He, with hundreds of other vendors, tried to draw the thin crowd at the Portland Expo Center to their booths, hoping they would be customers instead of "tire kickers." Conrad said sales are tough for products such as greenhouses or new hardwood floors when people are more concerned with necessities.

He admits that although the family-owned company is not "recession-proof," it is doing fine.

"We're not nearly up to the figures we had in the pre-slump days," Conrad said. "But managing to survive."

By noon Saturday, there were only a few hundred people browsing, but attendance on Thursday and Friday increased from the past couple of years when the recession was at its worst. Not only that, but many were ready to buy.

Colleen Mihalik, who runs her own Portland design and renovation company, Construction Management and Design, finds most of her jobs through home shows like this weekend's because advertising is too expensive. She used to do one a year, but increased to two and then three as the recession worsened. This year, she is starting to scale back and is considering going back to one because more people are finding the money to invest in custom-made designs.

That doesn't mean sales are picking up for everyone. Fay Demeyer of Deluxe Coatings & Cabinets said if the economy has gotten better, people still aren't spending their money on new floors or expensive waterproof decks. The company has stayed in business, though, while others that hers used to exhibit next to at home and garden shows have folded. Still, she's made sacrifices by running business operations from home in Brooks instead of keeping a storefront in Lake Oswego.

"That's kind of a test of the integrity of your business, just because we can stay in business," Demeyer said.

They also can't afford to advertise, so they have to be as trustworthy as possible to encourage customers and contractors to promote them by word of mouth.

"In these economic times, instead of trying to make more on our customers, we keep (the price) where it is," Demeyer said. "What we charge, we make money, so there's no reason to gouge people."

The one new market emerging, Demeyer observed, is when families move in together. That means they expand their homes or convert garages into playrooms for children, which requires flooring. It's the belt-tightening that both customers and businesses can relate to.